Deadline to be set for treaty claims, Clark says

The Government will release its Treaty of Waitangi policy before the election and it will set a deadline for lodging claims, Prime Minister Helen Clark has said.

Helen Clark was speaking after New Zealand First leader Winston Peters released his party's treaty policy yesterday, which sets a 10-year deadline for settling all claims.

"We are obviously keen to have claims settled in the next 10 to 15 years, but in order to get claims settled you have to have a closing off date for lodging," she said.

NZ First's hardline policy would replace the Waitangi Tribunal with a Waitangi Commission which would have to resolve all historic claims by 2015.

The Green Party said it amounted to "a massive land grab" because it would be impossible to settle all claims within 10 years.

Its Maori affairs spokeswoman, Metiria Turei, said the deadline was "completely unrealistic" and many claims would not be settled.

"Thousands of acres of Maori land, wrongly taken, will not be returned," she said.

Mr Peters is also promising to eradicate race-based policy, axe "token" Maori jobs and end treaty education courses in the public sector.

He said the Government was promoting race-based policies and accused the National Party of having a policy of "assimilisation" which assumed that the key to Maori success was to make them the same as everyone else.

Maori Affairs Minister Parekura Horomia said "targeted" policies were needed to lift Maori achievement.

"Maori can do anything if they are given a fair opportunity and that's what targeting is about," he said.


National Party Deputy Leader Gerry Brownlee said a cut-off date for lodging claims was meaningless unless a date by which claims had to be settled was decided.


"(Helen Clark) is doing a disservice to Maori and non-Maori. She's refusing to give Maori certainty over when claims will be settled and she's confirming to non-Maori that Labour is not really committed to ever settling claims," Mr Brownlee said.


He said both Labour and NZ First had created a grievance industry with the Foreshore and Seabed Act and said six new appointments to the Maori Land Court showed they were getting ready for a flood of action.


National policy was for all claims to be lodged by the end of next year and settled by 2010.


- NZPA